Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight; The Prestige) pulled it off again.

I’ll leave the plot for you to watch and figure it out as it is near impossible to describe Inception with precision in just a few lines (nor would it do any honor). One thing is for sure though: you’ll leave the cinema with feelings such as awe, amazement, mindboggling and/or just plain “wtf happened”? So is it just the plot? Definitely not. While the plot has been executed to near perfection, many other factors play a significant role in what makes Inception an unforgettable movie.

A strong cast. With Leonardo DiCaprio (while not having seen many movies with him, Blood Diamond was impressive), Ellen Page (I’ve always thought she was a pleasant actress to watch to) and Ken Watanabe, you pretty much can’t go wrong acting-wise. I know Joseph Gordon-Levitt has one of the bigger roles in Inception, but I’ve actually never seen him in any movie before. His acting was fine though. I guess you could say the same about Tom Hardy, who played one of the more humorous characters.

Inception cast

Beautiful visuals. While the overall visuals are stunning, there is a particular instance where the folding of a city shown in the wallpaper picture above occurs. It’s magnificent. Be sure to feast your eyes during Joseph’s scene, seen below in the picture, as well.

Breaking the law of physics or is it?

A good score. Hans Zimmer’s tracks are usually very familiar and it’s easy to recognise his style, but in Inception it wasn’t so obvious. I have to admit that there was so much going on that I was having a hard time paying attention to every detail, including the music. The moments where I was able to focus on the music however, were excellent.

Inception is one of those movies again that’s actually worth going twice to the cinemas for. Go watch this on the big screen. I can assure you: you will not regret it.

Tomorrowland 2010

I’ve never been to festivals such as Pinkpop and Lowlands before so I was pretty excited to see what Tomorrowland had in store for me. Together with two friends we bought ourselves a combo-ticket for both the 24th and 25th of July because many great artists were spread over the two days.

Upon arriving at the parking (for which we obviously had to pay for) and not knowing that it would be another 30-minute walk to the terrain of the festival itself we finally got in queue for the wristbands, our proof of entry. After a rather poor security check we put our stuff in the lockers and I grab my camera to take some area shots.

The first thing you’ll notice is the crowd: it was huge. I was thinking: “Oh man, if a major artist starts playing, how crowded is it gonna be?” And let’s not forget the festival area, it had to accommodate for 13 stages after all. The stages were more or less divided according to genres (trance, dance, house, hardcore, …) and the main stage would act as the main sensation.

After getting familiar with the locations of the stages, it was time for our first artist at Trance Addict.

Saturday 24 July
Andy Moor

Trance Addict was quite a small stage compared to others. It was fully covered (tent) as well. I was wondering why Armin would get such a small stage though but it appears that the trance stage changes location on sunday. The candy decorations were a bit strange but the whole thing was supposed to look like a cake. The first artist we would see at our festival was Andy Moor. I heard of him once on a A State of Trance podcast from Armin van Buuren with his amazing track Faces. I was glad that he would also play this song at Tomorrowland. Another great song he played that I’ve been listening to lately was The Great Escape by Rank 1 and Jochen Miller. Most tracks were pretty good and he gave a good show for about an hour.

Andy Moor at Trance Addict

It was another hour before our next act would start so we decided to grab a bite. I guess it was to be expected but the food and drinks were so, so very expensive. Drinks were €2,80 and above for small cans and some foods could go for up to ten consumption tickets (which is equal to €14,-)!

I couldn't help myself...

Swedish House Mafia

Next up would be the Swedish House Mafia at the main stage. Right now, they’re best known for their “One” track (which probably was one of the most liked tracks of Tomorrowland). Night has fallen and the Swedish House Mafia has been giving an excellent show until now. The show was about to end and their climax was one of the greatest sensations I’ve ever had. Together with the crowd, Swedish House Mafia and beautiful fireworks, Tomorrowland was rocking the world! I loved every second of it.

We still had John o’Callaghan left to see for today. I was expecting at least to hear his own popular track Find Yourself but instead heard some rather mediocre songs. We left shortly thereafter.

Other artists we had a glimpse of throughout the day were Afrojack, Scooter (ugh), Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike and Airbase.

Sunday 25 July
Gareth Emery

Gareth Emery at A State of Trance

As said before, the trance stage switched to a much bigger location compared to yesterday. We didn’t listen very long to Gareth Emery but from I’ve heard, he was able to give an excellent show with tracks that resembled his style a lot. There was a ferris wheel nearby and we took a ride so I could take some photos from above.

Next up would be Paul Oakenfold but his tracks were rather disappointing. I did hear Dash Berlin with Man On the Run as we were leaving for the main stage though…

John Dählback was playing at the main stage when we arrived but I think most of the people there were pretty much waiting for David Guetta. Just before David was about to arrive, it started raining which miracously caused everyone to stand up. The MC told us to hold our arms in the air and go up and down in an attempt to stop the rain. It was very nice to see the enthusiasm of the crowd. Luckily, our prayers were heard and the rain stopped. I thought it was hard to surpass the sensation Swedish House Mafia gave us but when David appeared, Tomorrowland broke lose! For 2.5 hours we had the best time ever. It was amazing to see that the whole audience was involved and having a great time.

Armin van Buuren was also playing during David Guetta’s performance so we had to miss a part of that. It took us a while before we arrived at the trance stage due to the immense amount of people leaving the main stage. I have to say that I had higher expectations from Armin. He was (for me) one of the major artists at Tomorrowland after all. There were some good tracks but there were also tracks that did not resemble his style at all. We were only able to listen for 45 mins though so I guess I’ll need to see another performance before jumping to any conclusions.

Armin van Buuren at A State of Trance

All in all, Tomorrowland was one of the biggest sensations I’ve ever had. I definitely will be going to next year’s edition.

However, the enthusiasm didn’t last very long for me. There are a few reasons why I lost interest after pretty much just one season of Idols:

• The winners never appear to be anything special after their show ended. There were some cases where the number two actually had more success  than the number one. Wasn’t the goal of such series to search for an extraordinary artist out of many, many people? I think I’m a bit naive here; it’s obviously about the TV ratings and they probably could care less about the finalists.
• The many spin-offs made the whole refreshing experience rotten. Spin-offs such as Dancing With the Stars, Dancing on Ice, Popstars, X-Factor…pretty much ruined it.

Britain’s Got Talent however, is quite an exception…

It might be my imagination but I get the feeling that Britain’s Got Talent’s contestants have a lot more talent than our Dutch counterparts in Holland’s Got Talent. I’m sure you can all remember Paul Pott‘s sudden performance as well as Susan Boyle. There were many other amazing acts but I was watching the contestants for 2010 and can’t help but notice these:

Tobias Mead

Besides giving me some amazing tracks by The Prodigy (Invaders Must Die; Omen), Tobias Mead’s performance in his semi finals is just breathtaking. I just love how he manipulates the floating ball through his fluid movements. His audition and finals were strong as well with clever usage of his jacket by wearing it backwards; but my favorite is definitely his semi final performance.

Twist and Pulse

Their amazing moves according to every different segment of the track make me laugh and leave me in awe.

Then nearly fourteen billion years ago expansion started

Wait

Yeah, what happened after that? During my stay in Italy, my good friend Wendy introduced me to a marvelous comedy: The Big Bang Theory. It’s been a while since I’ve seen a good comedy series.

The series basically revolves around four highly intelligent friends who share a love for maths, physics, comic books and video games. Their social level however, is pretty much at the bottom. The only person who does possess social skills is the girl next door, Penny. She does not understand a thing of maths and physics though.  Every comedy has its share of lame jokes and The Big Bang Theory is no exception but with otherwise very clever and funny jokes, The Big Bang Theory also has another secret weapon: Sheldon Cooper (Jim Parsons), one of the nerds. I don’t know who casted him to play Sheldon, but he is a genius. And so is Jim Parsons. While the three others are fun, he is by far the funniest. I also heard he’s being nominated for an Emmy for the second time now. He definitely deserves one.

I’ve almost finished seasons 1 and 3 (only season 3 in Italy), but I heard it was already lengthened up until season 4 so I still have a good share of The Big Bang Theory to look forward to.

• Simplicity

I’ve always picked designs that were really heavy on graphics. It’s not that I don’t like simplicity, on the contrary, but I like shiny graphics too and those get my attention alot faster than the simple ones that usually don’t stand out in thumbnail previews. I specifically made sure that I was looking at the simple designs instead of the pretty graphical ones this time. Monochrome is black and white with minor graphical changes. Perfect.

• Overview

No mess. One particular feature I liked was the date/category/tag/comments bar on the left side of each post. It gives a quick overview of what the post is about and when the post was posted.

Some problems might arise due to the layout change, such as large images that appear outside the right bar. Most of these are fixed, but you’re welcome to contact me if you find any others. Furthermore, the tags have been updated and will be more specific from now on.

I know that many others will use it (and I can’t blame them) but frankly, as long as it fits my blog I’m fine with it. I hope you like the new design; it has to last at least those two years the Mandigo theme lasted!

The patient was an older lady who had liver cancer. During the surgery, they saw that a tumor had attached to the diaphragm and therefore got very difficult to remove. It seems that they punctured the diaphragm in the process which took a lot of time to fix. After they fixed the diaphragm, another surgeon was called to do an echo. It was probably to make sure they had the right part of the liver and to see from where to where they had to cut. Our surgeon let us knew what he’d be removing by showing the parts on the pictures but in reality, it was a lot bigger. It sure looked like as if about 75% of the liver was removed. As said before, I was finally able to take some photos and it can be clearly seen there how big the dissected part was. After the resection, we were allowed to feel the liver and its tumors. It was amazing. Again, I made videos of that too. Last but not least, I was allowed to stand really, really close to him so I could take some photos from up close. He’s an example of how every surgeon should be: an expert in his field and one willing to teach others. The surgery took over 4.5-5 hours but it was worth every second of it.

Surgery was never a field I had a particular interest in (nor a disinterest), but after seeing these surgeries, I must say that it has grown on me. Who knows…

WARNING: The videos and photos are not for the faint of heart.

Ferrara Day 28: Liver Resection
Ferrara Day 28: Liver Resection 2
Ferrara Day 28: Liver Resection 3

Gallery is after the break.

Ferrara Day 25: Soccer
Ferrara Day 25: Soccer 2

The storm quickly resolved and we were able to go to the house party. I had something in mind (some kind of villa; I thought the man would probably be quite wealthy). I was close. Wow, that house was huge. And very beautiful. Especially the surroundings were breathtaking and very tranquil. The food we were offered: delicious, just delicious. Real, Italian food. Man, it was good. Do you mind if we come again, sir?

Videos:

Ferrara Day 24: Storm
Ferrara Day 24: Storm 2
Ferrara Day 24: Storm 3

Gallery is after the break.

As for the sun…It was nice, but I managed to get first degree burns on my feet from walking on the sand (it was so hot that it actually hurt like hell! Literally.). Not to mention my burnt ankles and back when I got home…Unfortunately, I did not take any photos this day (didn’t want to bring the camera).

Our first surgery would be a cholecystectomie, the removal of the gallbladder. There was a patient lying on the surgery table and I thought it was the previous patient that was finished and being prepped for post-op. The patient was actually being prepped for the surgery we were about to see. I didn’t realise a pre-op would be so long (the patient did have a medical history though). Anyhow, after being prepped, the surgeon wanted to remove the gallbladder through a laporascopie but due to complications in the belly (the gas blown into the belly could not be regulated, which caused instability of the heart) the surgeon had to make a cut near the liver and remove the gallbladder ‘the classic way’. It took way longer than the surgeon had anticipated and we noticed he got a bit annoyed by that. Finally, the gallbladder was removed and he gave us the opportunity to feel the gallbladder (and its gallstones) with our hands. I was amazed by the precision and carefulness of the surgeon. I loved it.

The second surgery was a thyroidectomie, the removal of the thyroid. We had a lecture so we kind of entered during the latter part of the surgery. It probably was the most interesting part as well, so we were quite lucky. Again, with amazing precisions the surgeons had to cut away the thyroid without damaging the nearby nerve and trachea. After removing the thyroid, he showed the nodule in the thyroid which was the reason why it had to be removed. The tissue was then sent to the department of anatomy pathology for microscopic examination. Turns out it was a benign nodule.

The kind surgeon showed us how the surgery exactly went and what stuff had to be paid attention for in order to do a successful surgery post-op.

I can not wait for my next surgery…Which is tomorrow!